


In The State I'm In

by jedishampoo



Series: All Right, Tonight Duology [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage, UKUS, side characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:51:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedishampoo/pseuds/jedishampoo
Summary: A sequel to All Right, Tonight.  Attorney Arthur adores his significant other, real-estate developer Alfred, but he Does Not want to get married.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My, I haven’t written in months. Yay!
> 
> This fic assumes you’ve already read the first fic in this duology, All Right Tonight, about Chicago Lawyer Arthur and Divorced Rich Guy Alfred. In this I don’t really reintroduce anyone or explain events or much about the characters’ backgrounds! But I suppose it would work on its own; feel free to tell me. To continue a theme, the title is from the Rick Springfield song, State of the Heart.

Arthur felt the warm prickle of sweat gather at his nape.  Weddings made him nervous.  
  
Or perhaps it was the stuffiness of the crowded, un-air-conditioned hall making him twitchy?  He shucked his suit jacket, twisting so as not to jostle the gentleman on his left.  He laid the jacket atop the unoccupied fold-out chair on his right.  
  
Alfred had still not arrived, despite the fact that his plane had landed two hours ago.  The wedding ceremony had begun ten minutes past. Arthur resisted the urge to dig his phone out of his jacket and fire it up: he thought very little of people so addicted to technology that they’d fiddle with their phones during the most solemn of ceremonies.   
  
Not that Portia and Yong were the solemnest couple who’d ever gotten shackled.  At the moment, they were both pink-faced and giggling.  The guests across the aisle from Arthur, on the groom’s side, were stirring and sharing significant glances among each other.  At least they seemed more amused than scandalized?  Likely Portia, bless her, had managed to fuck up some of the Korean she’d so painstakingly rehearsed.  
  
It was an interestingly bicultural affair; Portia was in white, a summer Chicago bride, and Yong wore a blue hanbok.  It was just the two of them and the Korean minister – no attendants, luckily, else Arthur probably would’ve been roped into standing up.   
  
The purely secular vows were spoken in English and then repeated in Korean for Yong’s family attending from overseas.  Not that those folks didn’t speak perfectly good English, for Arthur had met some of them before the ceremony.  But Portia had thought the bilingual aspect would be fun.  
  
“I promise to take care of Yong Soo, help him, in joyful times and in hard times, healthy times and sickness times, every day, forever,” she said, then “Goo utteohanili itdeolado shilrang Yong Soo goonwool (something something Arthur couldn’t make out) _._ ”  
  
There were no further giggles, so Arthur assumed she’d gotten that part correct.  She was wearing a jeweled, pirate-themed Hello Kitty pin in her dark, piled-up curls.  
  
Arthur would be having more fun if Alfred would _just show up, dammit_.  Why Arthur was in love with someone who was so unpredictable sometimes, he’d never--  
  
There was a quietly rustling commotion to his right, and Arthur laid his hand on his jacket to protect the empty seat.  Someone sat on his hand.  It was Alfred.  
  
“Phew!  Made it,” he whispered.  
  
Arthur ignored the tiny surge of joy that jolted his pulse out of rhythm.   
  
“About bloody time, too,” he whispered back.  He rescued his hand and shook it out.  
  
“Traffic was jacked up on the 90.  And there was an accident or something on Lake Shore.  I texted you, like, four times.”  
  
“I only saw the first one,” Arthur said.  He hadn’t seen his man in two weeks, so he took a good look: Alfred had dark circles under his eyes that even his glasses couldn’t hide, along with a fair bit of stubble shading his jawline.  Still he looked good, but then he always looked good to Arthur.  His lovely navy-blue suit was only a little rumpled, and his tie only slightly askew.  Arthur fought the urge to straighten it.  
  
“You look tired,” he whispered.  
  
“No shit, Sherlock Holmes,” Alfred whispered.  Then one corner of his lips curled up in a half-grin.  “Nice to see you, too.”  
  
Arthur felt his mouth give an answering and likely soppy grin.  He shifted his jacket and grabbed Alfred’s sweaty fingers.  He squeezed.  
  
”Good to see you,” he said.  Then he settled back to watch his friend be married.   
  
At last the vows were finished, and at last the guests were released to amuse themselves outside while the forms were signed and the pictures taken and the hall repurposed for a western-style reception.  
  
Having sat at the back, Arthur and Alfred were among the first out the door.  The wide vista of Promontory Point gaped open before them, miles of lake stretching like an immense sea, and the city hugging the shore to the west.  The afternoon was June-hot but still cooler and less stuffy than the meeting hall.  A few clouds mitigated the sunlight, and a nice lake breeze swirled over them.  Arthur led the way down to the water’s edge.  Alfred trailed him, chattering.  
  
“That was a really cute ceremony.  Glad I didn’t miss all of it.  Glad Portia won’t have an excuse to kill me.  Just, God.  The traffic.  I wanted to jump up front of the cab and take the wheel, take Touhy, take anything to get off the 90…”  
  
“Mmm hmm.”   
  
When Arthur judged they had a bit of privacy, he halted their progress, then turned Alfred and pulled his face down for a long-overdue kiss.  Alfred sighed and sagged against him in something resembling relief, and Arthur smiled against his lips.  For a few moments he filled his lungs with Alfred’s breath and let intimacy and emotion warm him where the lake breeze had been trying to cool him off.  Alfred’s stubble was scratchy under his palms.  Rather sexy.  
  
When they broke apart, Arthur took the opportunity to straighten Alfred’s tie.  
  
“I would prefer the opportunity to welcome you home more thoroughly.  It’s been a lone—long two weeks.”  
  
“Well, then.  Tonight we’ll make it up and then some.”  
  
“I’ll hold you to that.”  
  
“I know you will.”  
  
When Alfred’s clothing was arranged to his satisfaction, Arthur peered more intently at the circles under Alfred’s eyes, the lines on his cheeks.  He frowned.  “You do look tired.”  
  
“Yeah.  I’ve kind of been up for two days straight.  Wanted to get the survey on 844 East Yongan finished so I could make the flight home.”  
  
“Next time, book your foreign business when I don’t have a solid week of hearings, and I’ll go with you.”  They hadn’t traveled together in months.  And it had been years since Arthur had seen Taiwan.  
  
“Well, you know how it is.”  
  
Arthur did know.  How many late nights had he spent at the office?  Too many. One couldn’t actually plan one’s opportunities.  Busy lives mean they often captured their memories day by day, moment by moment …  Was that a silver hair, there among the gold, peeking out from under the arm of Alfred’s glasses, just over his ear?  No?  It seemed the sunlight had merely caught it.  
  
Alfred was watching him with an eyebrow raised in question, and Arthur realized he was still staring.  
  
“Ah.  Well,” he said, patting Alfred’s shirtfront.  “I suppose we should mingle.  And decide how I’m going to toast the, er, lucky couple.  My one responsibility this day.”  
  
“You’ll manage.”  
  
“I’m sure.”  
  
“Just be yourself.  Say something formal and maybe a teensy bit snarky, and you’ll have done your duty.”  Alfred had squeezed two fingers together to accentuate that _teensy_ , just in front of Arthur’s face.  Arthur mock-swatted his hand away.  
  
“Uncharitable!  I … want Portia to be happy. I’m happy for her.  It’s just, for all they’re vital to my thriving divorce business, I really do dislike weddings.”  
  
Alfred rolled his eyes and curled his lip.  Down, this time.  “Yeah, yeah.  I know.”  
  
Arthur felt himself flush.  Had Alfred’s eyeroll been wry, or rejected?  He supposed he’d made his own feelings on the subject overly known.  
  
“Come on, then,” Arthur said to cover the moment of mutual awkwardness.  He started back towards the party and let his hand trail behind him, a suggestion.  Alfred followed without taking it.  
  
The first time, Alfred had brought it up.  They’d been together about a year: the governor had signed a bill recognizing same-sex marriage in Illinois, and they’d been celebrating.  The gay bar was Alfred’s, a fun project acquired after he’d ceded his last nightclub to his ex-wife, Mariel.   
  
There’d been cheering, a champagne toast and a kiss, and Alfred’s face, close and shining.  Al, forever willing to be infected by everyone else’s joy.  “Ha ha!  Anybody could get married.  It’s possible now,” he’d laughed.  
  
And Arthur’s heart stopped, caught within an invisible, icy-fingered grip of sudden panic.   _Oh hell_ , he thought without being able to help it: _he means us._ A _nother marriage, another divorce.  Alfred’s been through it once already and I don’t want to, can’t bear to, and I hope_ _this isn’t all showing on my face, oh, fuck, I must say something—  
  
_ “Possible doesn’t mean imperative.  Ah ha ha,” he’d said.  Yes, yes, with the utterly foolish laugh tacked on the end and everything.  And likely it had all shown plainly on his face because Alfred’s eyes widened and his mouth went a little slack.  That expression clearly said, who’d not want to marry me, because everybody, like, wants to marry _me._  
  
Except Arthur, his own … significant other (he hated to say boyfriend, since they weren’t boys).  It wasn’t that they weren’t getting along fine, or were planning to break up-- at least not that Arthur knew.  Arthur wanted Alfred, wanted to be with him, cook dinners with him and discuss their days and then eat on the sofa and watch scary movies together, and he wanted to make love with Alfred during the astonishing nights and then wake up in humdrum mornings and listen to him grumbling about the alarm.  But marriage!  He’d not thought the institution was something he would ever be expected to partake of himself, not in this country.  
  
Not that he’d explained that well to Alfred.  But emotions had smoothed themselves over in the midst of celebration, and things had seemed fine afterwards.  Busy lives and all …  
  
Ahead, just outside the meeting hall, a table had been set up and a group of elderly ladies hovered over it, laughing as they uncorked bottles of wine (Arthur had helped Portia choose the wine) and poured bottles of rum into a giant, frothy bowl of pink punch (Arthur had nothing to do with that).  Happy groups milled about, waiting their chance to celebrate the happy couple.  Someone seemed to be waving at him and Alfred.  Arthur sighed.  
  
Alfred patted him on the shoulder blade.  “I’ll go get us a drink,” he said.  
  
Arthur turned to show him a relieved smile for having let the minor friction pass, but Alfred was already heading off in the other direction.  Arthur contented himself by watching Alfred walk away, watching his lanky legs in his snug trousers as he strode up the walk.  His customary internal energy was very much evident: he didn’t move like someone who’d been awake for two days.  
  
Arthur sighed again.  He spotted Portia’s twin brothers, flown in from Italy, and walked over to greet them.  
  
The second time, Portia had brought it up.  They’d been picnicking in the park behind Arthur’s flat with Portia, Yong, Tony and his partner Sadik, and Alfred’s buddy Ki with his fiancée, Em.  _I’ll do it all, take care of everything_ , Alfred had said, and was of course flame-broiling burgers on a ridiculously large grill which he called portable but which had required a van and two men from one of Alfred’s companies to move it out to the park.  And he had done it all: ground the beef – half a cow’s worth, at least – and marinated beans and made potato salad just the way Ki liked it, with lots of mayo.  His lackeys were rewarded with a generous bonus for their help on Labor Day.   
  
Alfred was grilling, and Yong was practicing his Japanese on Ki, so Portia wandered over to chat with Arthur.  
  
“I wanted to tell you first.  My brothers don’t even know!  But Yong and I are going to get married,” she said.  
  
Arthur choked on his soda, but soon recovered to offer congratulations.  Then he asked, rather squeakily, “When?”  
  
“Next summer.  We want to give his family in Korea time to plan a trip.  You get to help me with planning everything.”  
  
“Huzzah,” Arthur said in a dry tone.  Portia only giggled, and Arthur gave her a quick hug.  “The forever single club is sorry to lose your business.  
  
Alfred spotted their embrace.  “Too late, lady!  He’s mine,” he called over.  
  
“You can have him,” she answered, waving her soda in a _cheers_.  Then she turned back to Arthur and her eyes widened and he could almost see the lightbulb appear over her head as she had the idea he’d just known she would have.  He started to wave her off, but it was too late.  “You could get married, too!  Hurry up and ask him, and voila!  We could have weddings on the same day. My family will already be here, after all.”  
  
“No, we haven’t really--” Arthur demurred, but Portia’s brilliant idea would not be doused.  She dog-whistled shrilly.  
  
“Hey!  Jones!” she called, despite Arthur’s attempts to stop her.  Alfred closed the grill and came over.  He threw a towel over his arm and bowed, an obedient pup.   
  
“What may I do for you, miss?”  
  
“Soon to be missus.  You can congratulate me, because I’m going to be married next year.”  
  
Alfred’s smile was delighted as he shook her hand.  “Hey, that’s awesome!”  
  
“Isn’t it?  So how’d you like to be married again?”  
  
Ah, Portia, ever forthright about what other people should be doing.  Normally Arthur loved her for that.  
  
This time, however, he cursed her inwardly as Alfred’s grin faltered.  “Oh!  Um.  I wouldn’t mind.  But it’s not really in the cards right now, I guess.  So we’ll chug a soda in toast to you and Yong.”  
  
“Not in the--” The metaphorical light bulb behind Portia’s eyes turned a metaphorically warning yellow.  She looked at Arthur.  
  
“We haven’t really--” he began again, lamely.  Then he just gave up, waving a dismissive _pah_ at the whole discussion.   
  
Alfred’s grin returned with manic force.  And teeth.  “Yeah.  He thinks it’s, uh, not necessary, I think he said.  So we’re good.”  
  
Portia scowled at Arthur.  “What?”  
  
They were ganging up on him, dammit.   
  
“Not imperative,” Arthur said, enunciating.  “Imperative was the word I used.”  
  
“A distinction I leave to you, old chap,” Alfred said, mimicking Arthur’s accent.   
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“Hey, I gotta go turn the beef.  Someone get me a fresh soda to chug, willya?” Alfred said, and walked back over – stalked back over – to reopen the grill.   
  
“Awkward,” Tony said, and fetched Alfred a Pepsi.  Arthur hadn’t even heard him come up.  
  
Portia grabbed Arthur’s arm and dragged him a few feet.  “Oh, shit, Arthur.  I’m sorry.  You never told me you didn’t want to!”  
  
Arthur shrugged, a very Al-like gesture.  There was no other way to encapsulate all the fears, all the hopes – everything he couldn’t bear to think about.  “I never knew, until I was faced with the possibility.”  
  
“God, I suck.  You suck too, but I suck more right now,” she’d said, and then she’d wandered off to tell everyone else and accept more congratulations from their friends.  
  
And now Arthur was at a wedding, and romance was the order of the day, the lake breeze utterly laden with notions of legal entanglement.  Now that same-sex marriage was legal throughout the nation, everyone, it seemed, was expected to take the plunge.  Arthur supposed he could toss himself into the lake and make the issue a moot point?  No?  
  
Portia had a nice twin brother, and a cranky twin brother.  They greeted Arthur with respective friendliness and indifference.  Arthur had met them infrequently, as they had spent most of the last decade in Italy, studying art and European business.  If he tried, Arthur could probably remember which brother did which, but in Italy, those disparate fields were often fascinatingly intermingled, anyway.  
  
“So how are you enjoying your visit home?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Very well, thank you!”  
  
“Eh.”  
  
They had little in common outside of Portia, so Arthur turned the faltering conversation in that direction.  “What do you think of Yong?”  
  
“He seems good for Portia.  Though we always kinda sorta thought she would end up marrying you,” Nice Brother said.  
  
“Except I’m gay.”  
  
“Well, there is that, heh!”  
  
“Whatever.  About time Portia settled down, is what I think,” Cranky Brother added.  
  
“So have you guys gotten hitched yet?”  That was Alfred.  He’d come up from behind with wine for Arthur and a cup of the lethal pink potion for himself.   
  
Cranky Brother lifted his glass of wine, a salute acknowledging Alfred’s hit.  Nice Brother demurred and mumbled.   
  
“Well, it’s hard to settle down, you know?  So many pretty girls in Italy.”  
  
“True,” Alfred said.  He raised his pink punch in a return salute and then took a gulp.  “Damn.  I know they put booze in this, but it doesn’t taste like it.”  
  
Cranky Brother actually grinned at that.  “Watch out.  The grannies made that stuff.  You might wake up married yourself.”  
  
“Not today,” Alfred said.  
  
As if they couldn’t help it – and likely, they couldn’t – both brothers turned to looked at Arthur.  Who sipped his wine and said nothing and tried his hardest to feel … nothing.   
  
Conversation halted for a few moments in favor of more drinking by all parties concerned.  Eventually Nice Brother said, “We haven’t had a chance to meet Yong’s family.  I’d like to.  We should do that.”   
  
“Ah!  I can introduce you,” Arthur said, glad to have something productive to do.   
  
Yong’s family were congregated around the liquor.  Much of the crowd was congregated around the liquor, in fact, either in honor of marriage or cooling off, or both.  Arthur’s wine choices were going to be a definite hit.  He performed the introductions and Alfred refilled his punch.  
  
When they had a private moment, Alfred leaned over and spoke in Arthur’s ear.  “We really gotta talk about the Thing.  And our feelings about the Thing.  Sometime.”  
  
Arthur nodded, even as his stomach twisted.  “You’re right.  But not today,” he pleaded  
  
“No, not today.  Today is for other things,” Alfred agreed.  He smiled.  
  
As Arthur’s stomach and heart sorted themselves out, the happy couple emerged from the hall.  The bird seed was duly flung at them.   Then the party got down to the business of eating and drinking.  Drinking more, that was.  
  
Except for Arthur: after two glasses of the (excellent) wine, he switched to water, since he would be responsible for driving them home later.  
  
The day passed quickly.  Alfred and Arthur mingled, sometimes individually but usually together.  Arthur was thankful, and not only because Alfred had forgiven him.  For one, Alfred’s presence fended off the people who wanted to ask Arthur for legal advice (he kept a stock of business cards handy for just those sorts of social situations).  Also, Alfred, bless him, presented a united front with Arthur in the face of friends and even mere acquaintances asking them when they might tie the knot.  With punch-driven smoothness, he’d say, “It’s not about us today.  It’s about Portia and Yong!  Cheers!”  
  
Of course, many toasts meant that Alfred put away a great deal of the punch.  When he said “Here’s to Portia and Yong,” for perhaps the fifth time, he raised his cup so vigorously that he sloshed half of it out onto the lawn.  
  
“Careful! That’ll kill the grass,” Arthur joked.  He took Alfred’s arm and made their escape inside to get some food.  
  
He forced Alfred to eat.  He made his toast, which ended with: “I know she will be good to Yong because she has been my friend through easy times and difficult times.  And I know that Yong is good for her, because he gets her sometimes rather bizarre sense of humor.  Oh, and also he makes her very happy, which is the most important thing.”  The crowd smiled appropriately and applauded appropriately and Arthur, duty done, was able to sit down and receive a pleased hug from Alfred.  Which was the most important thing.  
  
Except Alfred had the hiccups.  Arthur patted him on the back as he tried without success to hold his breath.  Someone on Alfred’s other side suggested he drink punch from the wrong side of the glass, and all that meant was that Alfred got sticky rum and pink … stuff all over his chin.  His laugh was so uninhibited, his chin so adorably wet, that Arthur wanted to lick it off for him.  He contented himself with using a napkin.  He took the opportunity to whisper a warning.  
  
“Careful with the liquor.  Drink too much and you’ll not be able to ‘catch up’ with anything tonight.  Least of all myself.”  
  
“Aww, I’m not drinking that much,” Alfred said. Then he knocked over his water.  Arthur raised an eyebrow at him.  “Okay, mebbe you’re right.  I think it’s just hitting me because I’m so bushed.”  
  
“Do you want to go home?”  
  
“Hell no.  We gotta stay for the dancing.”  
  
And there was dancing.  Alfred bumped rear ends with Portia – on purpose, of course – and Portia announced, “Jones, you’re sloshed.” It wasn’t an accusation; she seemed tickled.  
  
Alfred was also drunk enough to become rather grabby on the dance floor, but since Arthur was the gropee, he didn’t mind.  PDA be damned!  But during one slow dance, when it seemed the groping was more about staying upright than seduction, Arthur put the kibosh on the rest of the proceedings.  He said their goodbyes and dragged Alfred, unprotesting, out to the car.  
  
Once they were on the road, Alfred took off his glasses, rolled down the passenger window, and laid his head upon the car door.  The evening breeze ruffled his hair every which way.  “Man.  It really hit me all at once,” he half-mumbled.  
  
“We’ll go home and get you to bed,” Arthur said.   Best thing to do, sigh, his own arousal notwithstanding.  Alfred didn’t often drink to excess, but when he did, he tended to laugh a lot and then pass out.  
  
“Oh.  I’m still gonna fuck the hell out of you, yannow,” Alfred announced.  Arthur’s belly fluttered; he spared Alfred a glance, but Alfred still had his head out of the window, his eyes closed.  He looked like he was dreaming.  Arthur tore his gaze from the (sexy) stubble on Alfred’s slack chin to focus on the road.  
  
“Oh, really?” was all he managed.  He shifted in the driver’s seat.  His trousers had become as tight as Alfred’s.  
  
“Yeah.  I’ve been saving it up for two weeks, man.”  
  
“Mmm hmm.  One of your nights, I take it?” Arthur murmured.  
  
“Yup.  I’ll fuck you so good, you’ll be all like ‘Yes, please.  Oh, Alfred!’”  He said the last in a high, piping voice that made Arthur laugh aloud.  
  
“You’ll make me sound like that, eh?”  
  
“Oh, yeah.”  
  
“I look forward to it.”  
  
Oh, did he ever.  They only made it just inside the door of Arthur’s flat before he was plastered with plastered Alfred, who kissed him with pink-tasting lips and hands inside his shirt.  Arthur’s back hit the wall and he sucked the rum from Alfred’s tongue.  
  
Three years together, and still Alfred did it for him: fired his every nerve, made him hotter and harder than anyone ever had.  His body, his voice, his touch were more beloved and sensual for being familiar.  
  
Even sloppy drunk.  Alfred chewed on his earlobes, and Arthur held him upright by digging his fingers into Alfred’s arse-cheeks, and stroking his lovely, slender thighs.  By pressing him close enough there could be no doubt how much they’d missed each other.  
  
Alfred’s hands crawled over the front of Arthur’s crotch, making his longing perfectly evident, anyway.  Alfred’s breath was hot and urgent.   
  
“Gonna suck you off,” he whispered, punctuating the words with a swirling, slick tongue in Arthur’s ear.  
  
“Yes, please.” Arthur moaned as Alfred fumbled Arthur’s belt off and zipper open and gripped his cock with eager-sloppy fingers.   He palmed it softly, teasingly for a few moments, then dropped to his knees and yanked Arthur’s trousers and boxers down to his.   
  
He sighed, wet, against Arthur’s aching cock.  “I love your dick.  C’mere, you.”  
  
He gave it a long, loving lick, from base to tip, his drunken fingers gentle on the foreskin, and Arthur’s knees melted.  The wall caught him in the back and in front were Alfred’s shoulders, and then his soft hair, in Arthur’s grasping fingers.   
  
“God, yes,” Arthur breathed at the ceiling.  
  
“Hope you like my dick, too, ‘cause you’re gonna get it.”  
  
“Oh, I do.  Unh, Christ,” he cried as Alfred swallowed his cock.  _Wonderful mouth, wonderful Alfred.  These astounding nights_.  “I love you.”  
  
“I mmph ymph tph.”  
  
Arthur laughed aloud.  He let his chin fall forward so he could see the top of Alfred’s golden head, delight in the spread of his eyelashes upon his pink cheeks, match the sucking sounds he made to the movement of his mouth, nearly flush with Arthur’s pelvis.  Short, sharp breaths became all Arthur could manage.  Heat, pressure, suction, and tongue combined to wrench the ache in his testicles and thighs and heart to a throbbingly alarming state of arousal.  
  
Here Arthur was, well past thirty (he’d never say _pushing forty_ ) and he was going to come as quickly as a teenager.  “Wait--” he warned, with a squeeze to Alfred’s ears, “I’m going to--”  
  
But Alfred had just let his lips trail off the end of Arthur’s cock.  He winked.  “Yeah, know ya will,” he said, then grabbed Arthur’s arse cheeks to hold him still and swallowed him whole again.  He sucked hard.  
  
A few half-breaths later, the tight yearning in Arthur’s belly climbed and peaked and he plummeted over the edge, gasping.  Al, the darling, swallowed – didn’t he always oh lord that had been good – and rested his cheek against Arthur’s belly.  His unshaven chin tickled Arthur’s sensitive skin.   
  
Arthur took a few moments to catch his breath, enjoy the closeness.  After a bit he realized that Alfred was not moving.  He sifted gentle fingers through Alfred’s hair.  
  
“Are you all right, love?” he asked.  
  
“Don’ think I can get up,” Alfred mumbled.  
  
“Oh, Alfred,” Arthur said, just as had been predicted, if not in the predicted circumstances.  He took a few more breaths to allow his jelly-knees to become bone once more, and then he hauled Alfred up and supported him to the bedroom.  
  
Alfred pulled his face out of his pillow once to mumble, “Less tell our assis-istants, we hafta make an appointment to talk about the Thing.  Ha ha!”  And then he fell back asleep.  
  
  
***  
  
Arthur woke with butterflies in his stomach.  Alfred woke with a terrible hangover.  
  
He moaned until Arthur got out of bed to fetch him some water and Tylenol.  Then Arthur went to the kitchen and made breakfast for himself.  Alfred might be able to stomach food by lunch, but only time would tell.  _Humdrum mornings.  
_  
In a surprise move, Alfred stumbled into the kitchen while Arthur was washing the pan he’d used for his eggs.  He was furry-faced and ragged.  He scraped a chair back and sat at the table, dropping his head into his hands.  
  
“Maybe some tea?” he croaked.  
  
“Certainly,” Arthur said.  The butterflies had returned to flutter in his belly.  Why was he so on edge?  He handed Alfred a cup of tea – with an ice cube to cool it – and the butterflies started dashing madly about when Alfred said:  
  
“I should call the office.”  
  
Oh, yes, that. _Surely he hadn’t meant that about appointments and the Thing_ — Arthur wasn’t ready–  
  
Aloud, Arthur said, “It’s Sunday.”  
  
“Well, somebody’ll be there.”  
  
“Then you should fire them for being an insufferable little toady.  It’s Sunday.”  
  
“Like you’ve never worked on a Sunday,” Alfred pointed out.  Truthfully.  He sipped his tea and grimaced.  “Gah!  My stomach can’t take it.”  
  
“Poor thing!  Done in by the shocking power of the granny punch.”  
  
“So mean!  Don’t mention that stuff ever again.  I’m going back to bed.”  
  
“You do that,” Arthur told him.  He kissed Alfred on the fuzzy cheek and watched him stumble out of the kitchen.  The cup of tea traveled with him, Arthur noticed.  He was still wearing his trousers and rumpled shirt from the day before.  Well, he could certainly afford another suit.  That was part of the problem, really.  
  
Arthur fixed himself another cuppa, sans ice cube, nice and hot to burn away his nervousness.  For yes, they would have to talk at some point.  Arthur desired to be ready when they did.  He’d expended too much energy not thinking about Things.  
  
He just needed to lay his reasoning out in his own mind, first.  Nice and orderly.  Numerical.  And then he could be as precise as necessary when they had their talk.  And there was no time like the moment: Alfred was down for the count, and thus Arthur had a quiet Sunday morning to himself.   
  
So.  Why, really, didn’t he want to get married?  (Ouch.)   
  
Fact One: nobody had actually proposed.  There!  That had been easy.  
  
It wouldn’t win him any rationality contests, however.  What if Alfred simply proposed?   
  
At the thought Arthur choked on his tea and his heart raced in competition with the butterflies in his stomach.  He couldn’t immediately identify the emotion that accompanied the sudden onset of palpitations, and he realized he didn’t want to identify it.  So.  Perhaps on to Fact Two?  
  
Two followed from One: he distinctly remembered Alfred saying they wouldn’t have to get married.  Granted, they hadn’t been dating at the time, and he’d said it in a moment of pique borne of lust and emotional turbulence over his wife.  Still, he’d said it.  And that was a nice, hard fact that Arthur could keep at his disposal.  
  
Fact Three was quite bold, staring him in the face like the memory of Alfred’s rumpled suit: Alfred made entirely too much money.  Arthur had no wish to wed where marriage would require a humiliating sort of prenuptial agreement.  He knew; he wrote them all the time.  From a legal standpoint they made perfect, practical sense, but felt different when applied to one’s own life and heart.  
  
Not that Arthur was poor or held riches in contempt.  He valued hard work and success, and it showed in his law career.  He had the reputation and capital to be very choosy about his clients.  And not that Alfred demanded the type of lifestyle that his peers followed.  No private planes or helicopters lurked in his warehouses, and he patronized no clubs so exclusive that Arthur couldn’t join them as well.   
  
And while Alfred had gotten a huge penthouse condo in the West Loop after his divorce, his “Fresh Start Bachelor Pad,” as he called it, he pretty much stayed at Arthur’s Old Town flat.  He kept the fancy apartment for the occasional cocktail party and to store his stuff.  Like, the suits that wouldn’t fit in Arthur’s closets.  
  
Most people wouldn’t complain about having a fabulously rich significant other, especially one who lived in a relatively down-to-earth manner.  Arthur wasn’t complaining about having a significant other like that.  Just … he didn’t want that in a husband.   
  
Would the possible blow to his ego be enough to make his argument for good?  If not, then on to Fact Four.  
  
Fact Four was more of a question: why should they get married?  Weren’t they doing fine?  They were happy.  Arthur was happy, anyway, and Alfred seemed content.  Perhaps both of them were a little emotionally reticent, but at least they could say _I Love You_.  If neither of them were the type to hang on each other and moan about how they were more in love than any couple who’d ever been in love, that was for the best, surely?  
  
Arthur indulged a brief daydream of Alfred draped on him and moaning his adoration.  The tea had grown cool and a foolish grin had taken up residence upon his lips before he shook his head to dislodge the silly fantasy.  No matter how pleasant such behavior might seem in the short term, in the long run it would surely wear on his nerves.  
  
Fact Five was the answer to the question of Fact Four: they didn’t have to get married.  Because when Alfred got tired of him, as he inevitably would, the relationship would end and Arthur wouldn’t be able to bear a long legal process to make a mockery of the pain and betrayal eating his own heart.  He’d seen too many acrimonious divorces: if they weren’t married, no divorce would be necessary.  Voila!  
  
Facts Two and Four would be most relevant in any discussion with Alfred, and the least likely to humiliate or expose himself.  Facts One and Three could be held in abeyance.  As for Five, he would never, ever mention it.  
  
Regardless, Things had been thought about.  Arthur was as ready as he’d ever be.  So he finished cleaning the breakfast dishes (quietly) and put on some music (low) and tidied the kitchen and thought about nothing of importance.  
  
He plucked one of Alfred’s jackets off the couch and shoved it into his overstuffed entry closet.  Alfred’s penthouse had buckets of unused closet space.  
  
He dusted his shelves of travel mementoes and objets d’art.  Alfred’s place had row upon row of empty shelves, or shelves holding the same boring, tasteful decorations that had been there before he’d moved in.  Impersonal things.  Arthur could fill those shelves beautifully, given the chance.  Make the condo feel homey.  Portia had begged to be set loose in the place; she’d practically offered to design an interior plan _pro bono_.  She’d even scoped out a nook where Arthur’s Louis Quinze writing desk would lend some old-world elegance to the neo-modern, bare walls.  
  
Arthur went out to his own tiny balcony and removed some soda cans for recycling.  The view from Alfred’s balcony was much more vibrant and sweeping.  
  
Plus, the condo had that massive master bath with two sinks, where they could both shave without bumping into each other the way they did in Arthur’s flat.  If Arthur was to have a fabulously rich significant other, why didn’t they live in his 2000-square-foot penthouse with a view, closets and a large bathroom, again?  
  
Arthur was sitting on the couch, alternately playing with his new tablet and reading an e-book on it – a legal drama that got half the legal bits wrong _as per usual_ – when he heard thumping noises from the bedroom, and then the sound of the shower running.  
  
After a while Alfred emerged.  He was freshly shaven and damp, and had regained at least some of the normal bounciness in his step.  
  
“I feel human again!  Mostly.  Not enough to drive; you’re driving,” he announced.  
  
“Where are we going?” Arthur asked, swiping his book closed.  
  
“Lunch at Louie’s!  So I can check in on things without, you know, actually working.”  
  
Louie’s was one of Alfred’s pet projects.  It was a burger bar on the south side.  
  
“I’ll have to get dressed.” Arthur was still in his lounging sweatpants.  
  
“Keep it casual!” Al said, sweeping a hand across his ensemble for emphasis.  Arthur obediently checked him out.  He was wearing a tee-shirt and cargo pants that hung loosely from his hips.  He looked a little sloppy and a lot scrumptious.  Still, Arthur wouldn’t be caught dead in cargo pants.  He handed the tablet to Alfred.  
  
“Here.  Fix this.  I’ve been trying to get my office e-mail on the thing, but it keeps telling me there’s no such server located or something.”  
  
“’Server not found’ is what it said.  You always make things sound more classy than they are.”  
  
Arthur left him tap-slide-tapping and went to get dressed.  He chose some clean, pressed denims and a knit shirt in a tee-shirt style, and hoped it would qualify as casual enough.  He made a quick stop in the bathroom to brush his teeth and check his face.  Yes, it was all still there, eyebrows, nose, hair that needed a trim.   
  
When he returned to the front room, Alfred handed back his tablet.  “Here you go.  Put in your password.”  
  
Arthur did as instructed and voila!  His e-mails appeared.  There were piles upon piles of them, loading, loading … Needy clients, needy counsel.  “Aha!  Yes, thank you.  I’m lucky you are a tech expert.”  
  
“Not an expert.  Just a junkie.” Alfred looked him up and down.  “You even make jeans look classy.”   
  
“Do I?” Arthur felt his cheeks warm.  He ducked into the kitchen to get his car keys from their hook on the wall.    
  
“Yeah.  Don’t know how you do it.  Guess I’m a lucky guy, too.  I’m glad the loafer look is back.”  
  
“It never left, did it?” Arthur called back.  He wondered if his inane smile could be heard in his voice.  
  
“Yeah, it totally did.”  
  
Arthur’s new car was an Audi A5, a little more sporty and technologically advanced than his 04 Lexus had been.  It had Bluetooth and hotspot and all those things.  What it didn’t have was a CD player; Alfred had converted all of Arthur’s music collection to digital files.  So Arthur handed Alfred his phone and let him sync it up or whatever and choose some music.  Alfred picked an 80s-90s mix; he must really wish to put Arthur at ease. _Uh oh._  
  
He did show Arthur his three unread texts from the previous day, as well as a new one from Portia.  _We’re off to SKI love and kisses!!!_  
  
South Korea was her and Yong’s honeymoon destination, so Arthur assumed the _I_ on _SKI_ was extraneous. Autocorrect, likely.  
  
He fought his way over to Clark, planning to take LaSalle to catch Lake Shore Drive, hoping the traffic wouldn’t be too bad on a Sunday.  Some idiot did turn right on a red and swerved out in front of him on LaSalle.  
  
“Watch it, you son of a …. Mother … _Mother’s love_ ,” he said, not even in a shout.  He managed to restrain himself from laying on the horn, settling for a bitty _tap-beep_.  
  
“Ha!  Nice recovery,” Alfred said.  
  
“Thank you.”  In his continuing efforts to better himself and ease his stress, Arthur had been trying to give up road rage.  This was his third try at quitting and he wasn’t doing badly at all.  He’d managed to give up smoking; surely he could beat traffic?  
  
Still, Alfred was being awfully nice.  Arthur reminded himself that he was fully prepared for anyThings Alfred wanted to throw at him: once they hit Lake Shore and had the benefit of Sunday sunshine, a blue lake and relatively smooth driving, he _ahemmed_.   
  
“Hrm.  So.  Are we going to …” he began.  
  
“What?”  Alfred glanced over at him.  Sunlight reflected off his glasses and obscured his eyes so that Arthur could not gauge what was in them.  Arthur took a deep breath.  _Getting Away With It_ was barely audible over the speakers.  _However I look it’s clear to see; I love you more than you love me.  
_  
“Talk.  About Things.”  
  
“Ah.”  Alfred shoved his head out the window, like a puppy dog enjoying the wind and sunlight.  It was a few moments before he continued.  “You know, Arthur, I decided not to do that to you.”  
  
“Um.  To me?”  
  
“Yeah.  You seemed stressed out about it.  So I decided maybe I should drop it.”  
  
“Drop it?”  _Was that good or bad?  Good?  Hooray?_ Alfred often came of the blue with this sort of shit, and in many instances Arthur had learned to roll with it.  But in this case it rather felt like he’d expended a lot of angst over nothing.  “This is a sudden switch.  It seemed important to you to talk about it.”  
  
“Well.  I guess I was just tired, and there we were, stuck in the middle of all this wedding hullabaloo…”  
  
“Definitely we were.”  The pressure had been palpable.  Arthur had resented it, and maybe Alfred had, too?  
  
“Yeah, and then what you said at the dinner made sense, about what’s the most important thing.  And I guess even in my drunk-ass, sleep-deprived state, it sort of hit me that it’s important to me to not to fuck things up.  I mean, we’re okay, right?  We’re doing okay like things are?”  
  
“I would say so.”  Alfred was speaking Arthur’s mind, after all, whether he knew it or not.  How in the world had that happened?  
  
“That’s why I’m trying to be honest about this.  So, anyway. I won’t bring it up.  I’m good.  I’m happy.”  
  
Leaving it open for Arthur to decide.  He took a deep breath.  He felt the sunshine infect his bones, his fingers relax upon the wheel where he’d been white-knuckling it.  “How about I just add this then: thank you.”  
  
“You’re welcome.”  Alfred patted Arthur’s knee.  “As long as you promise to never tell anyone I passed out in the middle of sex last night.”  
  
Arthur was so relaxed, he could feel mirth bubble up past his diaphragm.  He was very lucky, wasn’t he?  “Remember that, do you?”  
  
“Yup.  Though I’m gonna have to stress you out anyway.  Are we doing Frannie’s Naked Fourth bash next weekend?”  
  
F.H. Bonnefoy was Alfred’s lawyer, and a long-time acquaintance of Arthur’s; he might say _friend_ , if he were feeling charitable.  Bonnefoy and his wife Chelle were exhibitionists.  _Nudists_ or _naturalists_ , if the charity were to continue.   
  
“I suppose.  I will be wearing clothing, however.”  
  
“Haha!  I figured that.  I’ll be naked.  With the Cubs in first place and all, though, Chelle will be lording it over me until my balls shrink, I swear.  I’ll just pass her my guy card along with my clothes …”  
  
Arthur made a mistake: he glanced over.  Alfred was gazing dreamily at nothing out the window, twirling his finger in the breeze.  The smile that graced his lips was visible in profile.  He looked happy.  And Arthur’s heart swelled until it overran his knees and brain and made him lightheaded.  He was going to swoon while driving, he was so much in love, and then they would both be dead or at least horribly injured and he’d not get the chance to hang himself on Alfred like a wet coat and profess his undying adoration forever and ever, or at least until they both had white hair and creaked when they stood …  
  
Alfred pulled his head inside the car.  “Why did Portia say they were off to ski?  I thought they were going to Korea.”  
  
Arthur laughed aloud, breaking the moment and restoring oxygen circulation to his brain.  They did not crash.  
  
They did have burgers at Louie’s.  The restaurant was part of a whole redevelopment project of Alfred’s company: nicer than a fast-food joint, but not so high-end as to be priced out of the local market.  The restaurant anchored one end of a once-abandoned shopping center.  The other end held a grocery that specialized in affordable whole foods.  Alfred pointed out the couple of unoccupied storefronts with some obvious regret but said they’d been working hard with community organizations to recruit local business owners to fill them.   
  
Fortunately AFJ Holdings was a private corporation and Alfred could make or lose as much as he wanted on his investments: he had _that_ kind of money.  Arthur was glad he’d not have to bring up Fact Three.  It was liberating to have the choice.  
  
The burgers were quite good, and the restaurant’s manager, Keisha, was not too put out by the sudden appearance of her boss.  She teased Alfred for coming to keep an eye on her and he said, no, he’d come to eat all her burgers.  
  
And when they made it home, Arthur pinned Alfred to the couch and kissed him for a very long time, like he hadn’t kissed him in two weeks – perhaps longer, even.  It was slow, nice, a re-exploration of familiar and dear territory, light kisses along the perimeter of Alfred’s lips, then deep and breath-stealing tongue kisses.  He drew fingertip-circles on the skin of Alfred’s stomach, just under the waistband of his too-loose cargo pants.  No doubt he would want an old Alfred, but for the moment he enjoyed being in the primes of their lives, relished the way Alfred squeezed his ribs with long fingers and dug under them with his thumbs.  
  
“So how are you feeling?” Arthur asked.  Making out was lovely, quite lovely, but thoughts of skin and sweat drove his hips down, undulant, seeking and finding Alfred’s answering erection.  Alfred further answered by sliding his hands up under Arthur’s shirt, palms inducing shivers over Arthur’s sensitive nipples.  Alfred was definitely interested, physically, at least.  
  
“Pretty hot. Told you I’d been saving it up.”  
  
_Oh, good._   Seemed the curse of the punch had been broken.  “Remember that, do you?”  
  
“I remember every humiliating second of it.”  
  
“It wasn’t humiliating to me.”  It had been pulse-pounding, in fact.  “So who’s driving?”  
  
He didn’t mean the car, and Alfred got the message.  “You are.  Drive it good, baby.”  
  
“Hah! I’ll try to meet your exacting standards.  ‘Oh, Alfred, oh!” Arthur cried, mimicking Alfred’s words of the night before.  
  
“So mean!”  
  
“Not so.”  They shucked their clothing and made love on the floor right in front of the couch: they were still young enough for that, though they’d never have been able to do that at Alfred’s place, what with all the hardwood and tile.  Arthur supposed he should keep his thoughts about shifting residences to himself for the time being, given their current truce on not fucking things up.  
  
Besides, he had Alfred to catch up on.  He didn’t so much drape himself as pull Alfred up around him, bury himself in the tangle of Alfred’s arms around his back, his long legs squeezed around his hips.  His body tight around his cock.  Arthur drove his hips slowly, drawing out the reunion as long as it might last, cherishing the slow heat of passion that built deep inside him.  
  
They watched each other; Arthur wondered what might be on his own face.  Everything – his hopes, his fears, laid bare?  _I love you more than you love me._ Alfred was flushed, sweaty, adorable.  Arthur kissed his cheeks, his nose, his now-smooth chin, and then returned to breathe his exertions against his lips.  “I’ll – _ah_ \-- admit I found the unshaven look a little sexy.”  
  
“Really?  It itched.”  
  
“It would have been more comfortable once it’d grown out.”  Arthur licked Alfred’s chin for emphasis, then dragged his tongue along it to press it just under his jaw, to feel the flutter of his pulse.  They were pressed so closely, moving in such rhythm he could match it to the heartbeat under Alfred’s chest, the slide of his cock against Arthur’s belly.  He could feel Alfred’s nipple-ring pressing into his shoulder.  It was a silly whim, one Alfred was forever saying he’d remove one of these days, but Arthur knew he was vain and silly about it.  
  
Silliness was part of his charm.  Alfred was so alive; Arthur fed off that energy.  Like a vampire.  He dragged his teeth along the taut lines of Alfred’s neck.  Alfred moaned and Arthur’s hips answered, picking up their slow pace, building heat more and more urgently.  
  
“How – ah-- do you know?”  
  
“I grew a beard.  Once.” Arthur had to answer in short bursts, catch his breath with the increased rhythm of their lovemaking.  God, sex with Alfred was fun.  “In law college.  To annoy – huh -- one of my professors.  He was an ass.”  
  
“Really?  How’d I never know that about you?”  
  
“I have to maintain some mystery.”  
  
“Ha!”  Alfred rolled his head back against the floor and closed his eyes and spoke for some moments only with the fluttering of his eyelashes against his cheeks.  He arched his back _ah there, there, oh yeah_ and clenched his thighs higher on Arthur’s sides, burning them both with the friction borne of fine hairs on sweaty skin.  His hands found Arthur’s face and he read the expression there with cupped palms, fingers in Arthur’s gasping mouth.  “I wish I’d seen it.”  
  
“Someday you may.  Imagine me with a distinguished, grey beard…”  
  
Maybe that did it for Alfred -- he shuddered all over and cried out, “Ah, Arthur,” and Arthur braced himself to move faster, _hurry_ , clasping Alfred’s cock in a tight fist, holding, holding him.  To no avail: Alfred came, sticky and trembling.  Arthur buried his face in Alfred’s shoulder and heaved out a last few thrusts, staccato gasps.   
  
Poor Alfred was the one with his back against the carpet, but he made a decent pillow.  They lay there a couple of minutes, just being close.  Comfortable.  Arthur couldn’t imagine anything, anyone, other than this, for him.  Young or old or tired of him or whatever; he’d never let Alfred go without a fight, he realized.  Fact Five be damned.  
  
Alfred, never still for long, started sifting through Arthur’s hair.  
  
“So are you going grey?  Is there something else you’re not telling me?” he murmured.  
  
“Not that I know of,” Arthur said, drooling a little onto Alfred’s already damp skin.  “Oh, that reminds me.  I thought I saw some silver in your hair yesterday.  In the sunlight.”  
  
“What?  Where?”  
  
“Right up … here.  Let me check it for you.  Ow!  Ouch.” For when Arthur’d pushed himself up he’d managed to bang his elbow and his knee against the floor at the same nerve-crunching time.  
  
Alfred just laughed at him.  Now who was being mean?  But eventually they creaked upright.  They showered until the water began to run cool, Arthur sudsing Alfred’s hair and pointing out several grey hairs -- utterly fictitious, of course -- and Alfred distracting him with slick, soapy hands.  
  
Dinner was Arthur’s leftover pasta from Friday night.  A little reading, and then well-earned sleep.  They were okay.  They were.  It was a perfect night, really.  
  
***  
  
Too bad it had to become a morning.   
  
Arthur swept into the office at seven-forty, early as usual.  His assistant Monaca was already there, which was not usual.   
  
She smiled at him.  Her smile looked a little toothy and odd.  
  
“Hi, Mr. Kirkland!  How was the wedding?”  
  
“Lovely, thank you.  What is it?”  She’d gotten up and stood in front of the door to his office.  
  
“Do you read the _Daily_?”  
  
“No, but I have the _Tribune_ here on the tablet.”  It had been a rushed morning and he hadn’t had a chance to look at the headlines just yet.  They’d been getting back to their busy lives and all …  
  
“Well …” Monaca bit her bright pink lip, getting lipstick on her teeth.  Arthur stared at her, and she continued all in a rush. “The local lifestyle column put up its Chicagoland’s-top-ten-most-eligible-and-your—Mister Jones was on there.”  
  
“What?  Most eligible what?”  
  
“Um.  Eligible people?  To try and marry?  I guess you don’t know about it.”  
  
Of course Arthur didn’t know about it.  It was an odd coincidence, given their talk the previous day.  “Sounds daft,” he said.  
  
“Yeah, it is.  Just a thing they do … anyway, I wasn’t sure if you’d seen it so I brought the article up on your desktop.”  
  
“I …” Arthur was still a little discombobulated.  “I’m not sure if I should thank you or not.”  He tried a smile.  
  
The smile failed completely.  Monaca cringed and ducked back to her chair.  “Sorry!”  
  
“Don’t be sorry.  You didn’t write it.”  
  
“Nope!  Ha ha.”  
  
Her laugh was as comfortable as his smile had been, which was to say not at all.  He went into his office and saw that she’d made tea as well.  What the hell was in the damned article, anyway?  
  
Arthur arranged his things upon his desk as deliberately as possible.  He glanced through the names on the slim client files stacked on his desk for the day’s appointments – they still used folder files, even though most of the work had gone electronic in the last year.  When he couldn’t take it any longer, he tapped his mouse and woke the computer.  
  
There it was, as advertised by Monaca: Chicagoland’s Top Ten Most Eligible.   He scrolled quickly through ten, nine, eight and seven.  They seemed to be minor Chicago celebrities.  Arthur only knew one of them personally: Oxenstierna, number seven – he was one of Alfred’s shareholders, and gay, gay gay.  Alfred was number six.  They’d used a picture from his company website, the one taken when he’d opened Fresh Leaf Market last fall.  He’d been photographed in his usual company style: smiling widely in sunlight, showing white teeth.  
  
“Number six is a newcomer to our list.  Up-and-coming real estate mogul (Up and coming?  Mogul?  How awful, Arthur thought) and L.A. native Alfred Jones makes his home in the heart of the West Loop.  His privately held company, AFJ Holdings, and its subsidiaries specialize in entertainment, residential and restaurant properties.  Recent projects include a promising redevelopment initiative in various areas of the south side.  Jones, 33, was divorced in 2013 from Mariel Łukasiewicz. His peers call him an energetic, sunny personality.  We think he’d be a good candidate for The Bachelor. ABC, are you reading?”  
  
“You must be joking!” Arthur yelled at the screen.  He realized he’d left his door open when he heard Monaca snort at her desk.  He composed himself.  “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”  
  
“Super-ridiculous,” Monaca agreed.  
  
Well, Alfred wasn’t going to be on The Bachelor, because he was with Arthur, married or not.  And he also didn’t live in the Loop.  He sponged off Arthur in Old Town and couldn’t even pick up his own clothing from the furniture.   
  
Arthur noticed they hadn’t mentioned Alfred’s significant other.  Who was a _lawyer_.  Didn’t they have to get people’s permission and cooperation to publish things like this?  Unless Alfred knew about it …  
  
Arthur picked up his phone to call and gripe at Alfred, even though it wasn’t likely his fault, unless he’d known about it, in which case Arthur would kill him.  Before he could dial, a text came through from Tony.  
  
_Your boyfriend was just on TV_ , it said.  
  
_Where?_ Arthur texted back.  
  
_WCLU Wake Up Chicago_ , Tony answered.  
  
Arthur searched out the WCLU station website, and clicked on _Wake Up! Chicago_.  They already had clips of the morning’s show.  Arthur clicked.   
  
Laughter blared out from the computer.  He quickly lowered the volume and ran over to shut his door.  
  
The morning show’s reporters were searching out the people on the _Daily_ ’s eligible list.  They struck out with numbers ten and nine.  They spoke briefly to some attractive woman of Indian heritage – number eight.  Oxenstierna’s office said he wasn’t available.   
  
Then there was Alfred, standing out on Lake Street in front of his office building.  They’d caught him getting a latte at the ground floor coffee shop.  God, he was cute.  
  
The blonde reporter was saying, “So, Mister Jones – can we call you Alfred?  Al?  Great – so did you know you were featured on the _Daily_ ’s top most eligible list?”  
  
“Ha ha!  No.  That’s crazy!” Alfred said.  He looked like he thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.  He gestured back at the coffee shop with his latte.  “Hey, maybe that’s why the barista called me Mister Bachelor this morning …”  
  
“Ha ha, I’ll bet you’re right!”  The reporter was leaning towards him, practically shoving herself against him.  At least, that’s how it looked to Arthur.  And Alfred, well.  He flirted with everyone.  He called it friendliness, and normally Arthur just rolled his eyes at the behavior, too pompous to be truly jealous.  “So!  Are you looking for a special someone to share your life, Al?”  
  
“Ah—well--” Alfred pushed his glasses up his nose when he leant over to speak into the mike.  “I’m not really single.  I’ve been with someone for a few years.”  
  
“Is that so!  Can you tell us about them?”  
  
“They haven’t given permission, so I’ll have to say nah, this time.  Ha!”  He still looked tickled pink.  The twat.  
  
“I understand.  So maybe you already have wedding bells in your future?”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”  
  
Arthur cringed.  
  
The reporter leaned close again.  “Well, we’ll leave you with a ‘good luck!’  Thanks for talking with us, Al!”  
  
“Thank you!  Have a great morning.”  Alfred saluted the camera with his latte.  
  
The reporter turned back to the camera.  “What a nice guy!  Sorry, single ladies of Chicagoland, sounds like you might be a little too late.  On to you, Roger, for number five!”  
  
Arthur fumed.  Single _ladies_?  Fucking straight people, always assuming …  And what had Alfred meant by “not really single.”  Not really?  How about absofuckinglutely not single?  
  
_Also not married_ , Arthur reminded himself.   
  
He picked up his mobile phone again.  Before he could dial, it rang.  It was Alfred’s office desk phone.  Arthur thumbed the green answer button.  
  
“What the bloody fuck was that?” he answered.  
  
“Well, I was calling to tell you about the crazy thing that happened but it sounds like you might know already?” Alfred said.  Arthur could hear the grin in his voice.  
  
“Yes, I saw the bit on _Wake Up!_   And read it on the _Daily_.”  
  
“I haven’t even read it myself.”  The noise of fingers _tap-tapping_ on a keyboard filtered over the line.  “Hey!  These are like socialites and stuff.  Oh, she’s pretty.  Berwald, oh my god.  Hey, they stole that picture from my website.  Wait!  It’s credited.”  
  
“You should still sue them.”  
  
“Why would I do that?  Promising redevelopment initiative, nice.  Oh, shit, Mariel’s gonna be pissed.”  
  
Arthur snorted.  “You didn’t know about this?”  
  
“Jeeze, no!  Why would you ask that?”  
  
Arthur was silent a moment.  Too long.  “I really didn’t think--” he began, just as Alfred said, “Wait!  You don’t _reeeally_ think I’d--”  
  
“No!  I don’t.” Arthur cried, cutting Alfred off.  He took a deep breath. “You have to admit it just seems odd, after yesterday.  Maybe one of your friends--”  
  
It was Alfred’s turn to interrupt.  “Arthur, I love you, but you’re kind of a jerk sometimes.”  
  
“I’m a jerk?”  
  
“Hey, I gotta go.  My eight-fifteen is here.  Talk to you tonight?”  
  
Arthur sniffed.  “Fine.  Have a good day. Mine is likely to be fucking awful.”  
  
“You weren’t the one on TV.  Bye,” Alfred said, and hung up.  
  
Arthur savaged his poor mouse, clicking to shut down the offending websites.  Then he sat at his desk and seethed for a few minutes over his tea.  Yes, how horrible it must be for Alfred, with his “friendliness,” to be told he was desirable.  He was likely eating it up with his silver spoon.  And Mister Sunny Personality was the one calling his partner a jerk!  Perhaps Arthur called him names at times.  But he did it with affection!  Mister Sunny Personality just tossed out an _I love you but_ before being nasty.  There was a difference, dammit.  
  
It took a few sips of tea for Arthur to calm down, let his usual rationality reassert itself.  He wasn’t truly angry at Alfred.  It wasn’t his fault he’d been hit with this: he did try very hard to keep his personal life private in a world of constantly watching media and public.  Fucking world.  Arthur put on his attorney face and prepared to face his workday.  
  
And his workday was pretty annoying.  The client meetings were fine, at least as fine as they could ever be with people squabbling over the children, the furniture, the cats, and every single penny they had in their bank accounts, or crying and raging over unfaithful spouses, or any of the other things they did in divorce situations.  He was used to those behaviors.  His attorney-self often had to play psychologist.  
  
But when he wasn’t with clients, when he was walking through the office to visit the loo or get lunch, he could sense the amusement of his coworkers, though most of them didn’t dare to approach him about it.  When he was reading his e-mails, or when he was foolish enough to look at his mobile phone, everyone who _would_ dare reminded him that his significant other was now one of the most sought-after marriage prospects in the metro area.  
  
Most of them found it amusing.  _As Alfred had_.  Bonnefoy called to chortle at him, the ass.  Even Arthur’s law partner, Andersen, suggested on his way out the door that Arthur had “better nab his guy quick.”   
  
Arthur simply laughed and went back to his office.  He packed up his things for the day, as deliberately and slowly as he’d unpacked them.  He’d had been through all that nabbing business already, dammit.  He’d been through it and they’d gotten past it.   
  
He resolved to be zen on his drive home, and he was: he listened to some music of his own choice ( _If I seem a little strange, it’s just the state of the heart_ ) and he was so zen he was practically sleep-driving, or at least lost in his own thoughts.  It wasn’t Alfred’s fault that he wasn’t already married, after all.  And he’d said, even, that it was important to him not to fuck things up.  To keep Arthur comfortable and happy, basically.  Bless his heart.  What had Arthur said?  Thank you?  He cringed to think of it.   
  
Why didn’t he, Arthur, want to just bloody make it official and legal, again?  The world seemed to think it was a good idea.  Arthur was merely cross with the world for not falling in line with his wishes.  His Facts.  Which seemed less important today than they had yesterday.   
  
Whatever was really causing his emotional turmoil over this silly business, it didn’t matter. He would apologize to Alfred when he saw him.  Arthur picked up Thai takeout for dinner so he and Alfred could just be together quietly, fuck the world, without having to cook or do dishes.  
  
Arthur arrived home a little late, but Alfred was even later.  And when he finally came breezing through the door, he was just so goddamned blithe and smug, it put Arthur’s teeth on edge.  Alfred kissed him on the cheek.  
  
“Hope you’re not still pissed at me,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it on the couch.  Again.   
  
“I wasn’t angry at you,” Arthur said with a tight smile. “I picked up dinner.”  
  
“Awesome!  On both counts.  Man, what a day.  Did I ever have to listen to it.  Molo was kidding me about starting an office pool, to see how long it’d take me to get hitched after this.  It was worse than Portia’s wedding, I swear, what with people talking about stupid wedding bells.”  
  
“My day was rather similar,” Arthur said.  He tried his hardest to make his smile look commiserating.  
  
Alfred must have bought it.  “Yeah? Sorry to hear it. Oh, and Mare called to yell at me, and I told her it wasn’t my fault.  I think she finally believed me.  She says she’ll sue their asses for mentioning her.  So did you know she and Felix are preggers again?”  
  
“Oh.”  Arthur’s commiseration became a little more genuine.  “Well, good for her, I suppose?”  
  
“Yeah.  Good for her.”  Alfred wrenched his tie loose and flopped into a kitchen chair.  Arthur opened the packages of Thai – curry for him, padd seuw for Alfred – and dug the chopsticks out of the bag.  Alfred snapped his chopsticks and clicked them at Arthur like _snappy-birdy-beak_.  He grinned.  “The webmaster account was getting these crazy e-mails.  From strangers.  Pornographic e-mails for me.”  
  
Oh, even rational people had their limits.  “I suppose you’ll have people – _single ladies_ – throwing themselves at you now,” Arthur snipped.  
  
“What, like they don’t already?”  
  
Arthur’s sudden expression must have threatened to set his hair afire, for Alfred quickly threw his palms up.  “Kidding!  Just kidding.”  
  
“That was a bad joke.”  Arthur snapped apart his chopsticks, perhaps a little viciously, and did a poor job of it.   
  
“I get that now.   Especially when you’re in this kind of mood.”  
  
_Oh no, he hadn’t just said that._   Powder keg: set.  Arthur set his uneven chopsticks down onto the table with a _click_.  “What kind of mood do you mean?”  
  
“All …”  Alfred waved his hands.  “Haughty and snide.  You’re curling your lip at me.”  
  
“I’m not.”  
  
“You are.  They only send me that stuff because they think I have money.  Obviously they don’t know shit about me, or us, and it doesn’t really matter.  It’ll all blow over soon enough.”   
  
“Hmph.  Well, you should still sue the _Daily_.”  
  
“Why? For insinuating that someone’d want to marry me?  How stupid of ‘em.”  
  
The smartass.  Waving lit matches around.  If he thought he’d seen lip-curling before …“Well, you do have too much money.”  
  
Oops.  Arthur hadn’t meant to say that.  Alfred stared at him widening eyes.  Arthur suspected he looked somewhat the same.   
  
“Is that what this is about?” Alfred asked, slowly.  
  
“No.  Not at all,” Arthur backtracked, mimicking Alfred’s earlier, desperate, palms-up gesture.  
  
“So, are you saying I should quit, or something?”  
  
“No!” Arthur said, loud.  _Dammit, dammit._ He’d been so lost in his own nasty mood, he hadn’t judged Alfred’s correctly.  He’d mistaken “blithe” for “twitchy.”  He put on his calmest pseudo-psychologist’s voice. “I can also make bad jokes.  Let’s just eat, shall we?”  
  
“I’m not--” Alfred began, as Arthur had suspected he might; Alfred could be rather passive-aggressive when his emotions were up.  But in a surprise move, he didn’t say _not hungry_ , only sighed deeply.  It seemed he even sagged in his chair.  “Okay.  Thanks for getting dinner.”  
  
“Er,” Arthur said, taken aback.  Still, capitalizing on the lull in combat would be the most rational thing to do, so he did it.  “You’re welcome.  There are spring rolls also.”  
  
The gunpowder never ignited: dinner was polite.  They showered separately, Alfred first.  When Arthur emerged from his scrub, Alfred was already in bed, face down, the covers over his head.  He mumbled a _g’night_ and that was that.   
  
Arthur climbed in beside him and turned off the light.  Honestly, the night ended better than Arthur might have expected, given the potential for fireworks.  
  
***  
  
The next morning was as busy and rushed as the previous one.  Alfred seemed distracted: he kept going back and forth, back and forth, from the bedroom to the kitchen to the bathroom to the kitchen, forgetting his pen, misplacing his phone, trying to find his keys.  He did manage to give Arthur a peck on the lips before they separated to head to their respective workplaces.  
  
“Let’s try to have a better day,” Arthur suggested.  
  
“Shit, I hope so,” Alfred said.  
  
Tuesday’s schedule contained no client meetings; Arthur had left his calendar open to give him time to prepare for a big Wednesday conference.  That meeting had the potential to be the biggest case of his career so far: separation and divorce proceedings for a U.S. congressman.  Thus he had plenty of deskwork to distract him from the fact that Alfred didn’t try to call or text him once.  Some of the research he gave to his paralegal, Bella, but he still had preliminary briefs to compose and proposals to fine-tune.   
  
After lunch he took a break to work on personnel matters.  They really needed another associate to replace Andersen’s son-in-law Emil, who’d left a month or so previously to start his own small practice.   
  
Arthur set his phone to _do not disturb_ and spent an hour composing a job advertisement for the local bar’s website.  He was just getting ready to upload it and pay the fee when someone knocked at his door.  Monaca entered before he’d even replied.   
  
“On the phone.  It’s Molo, Mister Jones’s assistant?  He says he needs to speak with you urgently.”  
  
_Oh, what has Alfred done now?_ was Arthur’s first, uncharitable thought.  _Closed the company in a snit?_  
  
“Go ahead and send him through,” Arthur told her.  Molo was an odd duck, a young man who behaved brusquely and ill-at-ease with anyone who wasn’t Alfred.  But since he seemed loyal to Alfred – worshipped him, even – Arthur had learned to tolerate him.  When the phone buzzed, he answered, “This is Kirkland.”  
  
“Kirkland,” Molo said.  He sounded breathless.  “Al’s alive.  But I don’t know how bad it is.”  
  
“Alive?  Er,” Arthur said, and then confusion gave way to a twisting in his gut.  “Bad?  What.”  
  
“He’s in the hospital.  His phone was broke and the police couldn’t figure out who to call.”  
  
Arthur’s twisting insides wrenched themselves into a deep, hard ache under his breastbone.  “The police?  Wait.  Tell me everything.”  
  
“I’m trying to--”  
  
“Start at the beginning.  Breathe,” Arthur commanded.  That went for himself, as well.  He yanked open his desk drawer and grabbed his keys with shaking fingers.  
  
“Okay.”  Molo took an audible breath.  “I got a call from the police.  A few minutes ago.  They said Al was in an accident.  Hit by a car.  They wouldn’t tell me how bad it is.  They didn’t know who to call so they called his office.  Us.  They said does he have any family here.  I said no.  They said does he have an emergency contact.  I said I’d call.  So I called you.”  
  
“You could have just given them--” Arthur began, and realized it wasn’t important at the moment to be peevish at Molo.  “Where is he?”  
  
“Northwestern.”  
  
“On my way.  Thank you,” Arthur said.  Just before he hung up he heard Molo beg, “keep us in the loop, okay?”  
  
First Arthur needed to get in the loop and that meant getting to Alfred as quickly as possible. Thus Arthur was not the least zen in traffic.  He ran at least one very red light, and flipped the bird at anyone who honked at him.  He killed the radio; the music and chatter only wrenched his nerves into tighter and tighter knots.  In the silence, however, his mind was free to fabricate dozens of scenarios a minute: the shock of an unknown impact, over and over.  Alfred, in surgery without him there.  Alfred, dying in surgery without him there.  Arthur never getting the chance to see him again, apologize for being a jealous ass.  Having to call Alfred’s brother.  Having to call everyone.  No, Alfred would be all right!  Laughing about it at home, later.  Laughing about it at home, _alone._  He could never, ever do it.  He would cease to exist.  
  
Twice – futilely -- he tried to call Alfred’s cell, and got his chirpy voice mail message: _Hey, this is Al Jones. I can’t catch you at the moment, so please leave your name and number and I’ll call ya back.  Thanks!_   The second time, Arthur left a message.  “This is me. You know my number and you had better be all right, or I’ll … I don’t know what I’ll do!”  And he truly didn’t.   
  
He tried to call the hospital, but realized by the time he’d gotten through the recorded answering screed and found the correct buttons to push, he’d practically arrived.  He screeched into the garage and took the first spot he found, then ran to find emergency reception, cursing quietly the whole way.  The middle-aged woman at the reception desk tapped on her computer and told him, “Yes, an Alfred Jones is here.  He was admitted a little while ago.”  
  
“Admitted?  Where is he?”  
  
“I’m sorry, sir, that’s private information, and they haven’t given me any approved emergency contact names yet ...”  
  
Arthur took a deep breath and resisted the urge to snap her computer around to read it himself.  Or threaten to sue her. “Who are ‘they,’ please?”   
  
“The police and staff.”  
  
“Well, I can assure you that I’m the emergency contact.  I’m Arthur Kirkland.  His partner,” Arthur said.  He swore to any god listening, he’d make Alfred write his name on the back of his driver’s license first chance they got.  He’d do it himself.  Even in his panic, the thought struck him that if they were married, they could maybe avoid this sort of obstruction?  The woman continued to look at him with some pity, so he said, through his teeth, “His boyfriend.  “Can you please call someone?  I’m a little frantic, here.”  
  
“Okay, sir.  One moment, please.”  
  
She picked up a phone and dialed.  “This is Sue in ER.  I’m calling about Alfred Jones.  Do you have him yet?  Someone’s here to see him.  Mmm hmm.  Mmm hmm.  Oh, okay!  Thanks.”  She hung up and looked at Arthur.  She smiled.  “Good news!  He’s awake, and asking if anyone’s called Arthur yet.  And here you are.  He’s in 2501 ICU.” She pointed out the way on the hospital map glued to her counter.  Arthur thanked her and took off at a brisk walk that was more of a dignified run; they’d said he was awake, and that was good news … But the intensive care unit!  That didn’t sound good at all.  
  
Finally he found Alfred and … he was alive.  Presumably; his eyes were closed.  He was hooked up to things – drips, a beeping machine.  Half his head was covered in a bandage, and there was blood on his button-down shirt.   
  
“Alfred!”  
  
Alfred opened his eyes at Arthur’s cry.  He smiled weakly.  Arthur’s heart soared.   
  
“Hey!  Jesus, my head hurts.  And my leg is fucked up,” he slurred.   
  
“You are pretty f—battered all over, it seems,” Arthur agreed.  He snuck a hand between the wires and hovering medical personnel to grab Alfred’s fingers and squeeze, hard.  Despite the awfulness of Alfred’s appearance, touching him, hearing him speak, had slowed Arthur’s heart rate considerably.  If he fainted from relief, would the nurses put him in bed with Alfred?  Where he would hold on so tightly that Alfred would asphyxiate.  They’d have to pry him away …  
  
Alfred must have seen something in his gaze, or else he was squeezing Alfred’s fingers too fiercely, for he winced.  “I’m sorry about all this,” he said.  
  
“Don’t be,” Arthur told him.  
  
He was, awfully, forced to let go so they could wheel Alfred out for a CT scan – to check for traumatic brain injury, they said.  Arthur waited.  He worried.  He went to get tea, hoping that being gone might make them return. He waited some more, and wrestled with the worst-case scenarios running through his brain.  He was an attorney, after all; he couldn’t help it.  
  
When Alfred was rolled back into the room at last, he was in a hospital gown and had a fresh bandage on his head. It covered five stitches over his ear.  
  
Arthur was forced to leave again when they splinted Alfred’s leg, and again and again after that for various medical things.  In between waiting and being moved out of the way, he got the story in bits and pieces: Alfred had been crossing the street on foot, had stepped out from behind a parked delivery truck, had too many things on his mind and hadn’t looked the right direction down the one-way Randolph, and “Bam! Next thing I knew I was splattered on the ground and there were flashing lights and police!”  
  
It was Arthur’s turn to cringe, at that _splattered_.  
  
“I must’ve blacked out again,” Alfred revealed, “because I don’t remember much until I woke up here, with all these nice people poking me with things.  I was like, I gotta call Arthur.  Arthur’s gonna kill me!”  
  
“I wouldn’t really kill you,” Arthur said for the listening nurses’ benefit as much as Alfred’s.  Of course it hadn’t taken long for Alfred, even half-conscious and slurring, to charm the nurses (of both genders) so they fussed over him and praised his every improvement.  
  
And he did improve, little by little; it seemed his brain had not been too banged up despite hitting the pavement.  The doctor who’d read his CT scan gave them the news that Alfred had sustained a concussion and was experiencing the resultant shock, but there was no evidence of a critical brain injury.  
  
“Lucky my head is harder than the street,” Alfred said.  
  
“I tell you that all the time,” Arthur noted.  
  
“No, your head is just right,” the evening nurse informed him, with a glance at Arthur.  
  
Once again others were ganging up on him, but Arthur was glad to endure it.  Soul-crushing fear had given way to the drawn-out realities of modern medicine, and so Arthur could pat Alfred on the cheek and call him _my dear idiot_ with something approaching equanimity.   
  
In fact, the leg was a more worrisome injury than his splattered head.  He’d sustained a femoral shaft fracture that would require surgery and reinforcement with titanium pins.  The doctors predicted a full recovery, but the surgery would be fraught because of how close the fracture was to the femoral artery.  Afterwards, Alfred would require weeks of rest and physical therapy.  
  
They moved Alfred from the ICU to a regular private room.  Alfred was arranged with a long splint on his leg, to keep it stretched until his surgery on Friday morning.  They both of them made phone calls: to Alfred’s brother, his friend Kiku, and their respective offices, to give news and offer updates: Mister Sunny Personality would live.  Arthur would live.   
  
Arthur spent the night, sleeping on the pull-out sofa wearing the suit he’d put on for work that day.  He woke early.  Alfred was still sleeping off his injury, exhaustion and powerful pain medications,  so Arthur crept out and went home for a bit, to fetch some things and clean up.  
  
He called his mum in the UK.  Being a doctor, she demanded all the grisly medical details and offered advice.  He then took some time to wander around, evaluating his crowded flat for the second time in three days.  There was no room to maneuver.  The steps on the elevator landing would be a problem, not to mention the narrow stairway, since the floor’s one elevator was sometimes closed for service.  All in all it would never do: his building was too old and disability-disapproved.  
  
He packed toiletries and fresh clothing.  He also evaluated his life, their future.  Arthur was by nature a planner.  Long ago he’d mapped out his own move across the Atlantic, his schooling and his career.  His plans for love had been nebulous, but he’d always assumed he’d never fall into it.  
  
Then … he had.  And now it was a done deal.  Forever.  It hurt horribly at times.  The previous afternoon had stupefied him, left him dazed.  But he knew one thing for certain: his priorities had changed utterly.  It made him weary of the holding pattern they lived in, brought about by, yes, his own insecurities.  
  
But plans could always be rewritten.  Meeting Alfred had taught him that.  
  
Before he left he called his own office and told Monaca to clear his calendar for that day.  Except for the call to the congressman: Arthur took duty upon himself.  
  
The congressman’s assistant was not pleased and predicted dire circumstances, but Arthur told him that yes, he understood that one didn’t just cancel on a U.S. congressperson, but he didn’t bloody care, and if Mister Gregory wished to meet with Arthur Kirkland, it would have to be on Thursday.  The assistant said they’d let him know.  
  
It would be the last new case he would take for a few weeks.  If he was hired, and he honestly didn’t care one way or the other if he wasn’t.  But Monaca called Arthur’s cell when he was returning to see Alfred and told him they’d rescheduled, if a little snippily.  
  
Arthur arrived back at the hospital and the room to find Alfred awake, staring out the window.  He turned his head on his pillow when he heard Arthur’s entry.  
  
“There you are!”  
  
“Here I am,” Arthur said, stepping close to kiss Alfred on the unbandaged left side of his forehead.  Alfred’s eyes were red and watery.  
  
“I didn’t know you went out.”  
  
“I went home.  I told the nurse at the desk.”  
  
“Oh.  Maybe they told me. I thought it was a dream,” Alfred murmured.  
  
“Poor lamb.  Your head will right itself,” Arthur predicted.  The medical staff had warned them – him, in particular – that Alfred could be disoriented for a few days.  The pain medications likely weren’t helping his coherence any.  
  
“Okay.  Oh, hey.  They let me get up to take a leak.”  
  
“How nice of them,” Arthur said.  
  
“Yeah.  I used a walker, like a grandpa.  They said, don’t bump my leg, or I’d get put in traction.”  
  
“Well, you definitely don’t want to fuck it up further,” Arthur said, then looked around.  Luckily, there was nobody but Alfred to hear his language.  It seemed his own brain wasn’t quite right, either; usually he had a better profanity filter.  He’d learned a great deal about himself this last day or so.  
  
Alfred just grinned and closed his eyes.  “Yeah.  Sorry about all this hassle.”  
  
“It’s not your fault!” Arthur said, emphatic.  He would deal with the person who’d hit Alfred.  He himself didn’t practice injury law, but he knew injury and insurance attorneys.  Lots and lots of them.  
  
“I know, but I just wasn’t paying attention,” Alfred murmured.  
  
“What was on your mind?”  
  
“Stuff.”  Arthur had an idea what might have constituted at least part of _stuff_.  His heart ached for it.  But then Alfred opened his eyes again, wide, in something approaching alarm.  “Hey!  Don’t you have that meeting with Gregory today?”  
  
Arthur waved it off.  “No.  That’s tomorrow morning.”  
  
“Oh.”  Alfred sighed.  “Glad I didn’t fuck that one up for you, at least.”  
  
“Would you just stop it!  You are not a liability, but a priority,” Arthur informed him.  
  
He wasn’t sure if Alfred heard or understood; further discussion was precluded by a commotion outside his room.  Apparently Alfred had ordered gourmet cookies to be delivered to the entire floor of his hospital wing.  Two of the large, freshly baked-cookie-scented baskets were deposited in his room.  
  
“I wanted to be sure all the nurses would pay attention to me,” Alfred said.  
  
Arthur rolled his eyes.  “They would have done that anyway.”  
  
There were other visitors. Molo, who hovered over Alfred and gave him messages, most of them well-wishes.  Kiku stopped by.  More delivery people: Alfred’s brother had sent a basket of organic fruit, herbal tea, and flowers.  
  
“Better dig through that, see if there’s a joint tucked away,” Alfred joked.  Matthew grew many things on his farm.  
  
A doctor and therapist stopped by to discuss what would happen after Alfred’s Friday surgery. Provisionally, he could go home on Monday.  Then, two weeks of proscribed weight-bearing on his leg, which meant crutches or, more likely, a walker.  Lots of rest, very limited activity and work, and absolutely no going into the office!  After that, a follow-up appointment where they’d decide if Alfred could go back to work.  If he was very, very good.  And even after that, limited walking and crutches for another month.  Not to mention physical therapy.  
  
Alfred moaned.  Arthur wrote it all down.  
  
At one point a nurse entered and announced a surprise visitor: Xiao Mei, the woman who’d run into Alfred with her car.  Alfred said to of course send her in.  
  
She was small, dark-haired, and crying.  She rushed in to kneel at Alfred’s bedside.  “I’m so sorry!”  
  
“God, it’s not your fault,” Alfred told her, clasping her hand.  
  
“Yes it was!  I didn’t see you but I should have been watching!”  
  
“You couldn’t have seen me!  I was behind a huge truck!”  
  
Arthur had been prepared to murder the person who’d run over Alfred, either legally or with his bare hands – but he softened at her obvious remorse.  He wasn’t heartless, after all, and life didn’t conform to a plan: sometimes things happened that shouldn’t happen.  And sometimes things didn’t happen that should.  Those were the things one needed to take care of before it was too late.  
  
Arthur would take care of those things.  His future included Alfred, whether Alfred wanted it or not.  Forever.  Just let him try to leave!  Some of this, they needed to discuss very soon.  Other things Arthur would leave until after the stress of surgery.  They had all the time in the world.  Forever.   
  
But there were other visitors and deliveries to distract them.   Half of Alfred’s office, it seemed, stopped by after work.  WCLU sent flowers; likely they’d learned about the accident through police radio.  
  
Visiting hours ended at last, though Arthur, of course, was allowed to stay.  But he never got a chance to discuss the rehabilitation plans: after all the excitement, Alfred was exhausted.  He was eating a late dinner one moment, and asleep over his salad the next.  Arthur again slept on the sofa bed.  
  
***  
  
Arthur must have been exhausted as well: he slept later than he’d meant to.  Luckily he’d brought a toothbrush, a razor, and a fresh suit.  He was straightening his tie in the bathroom mirror when he heard Alfred speak from behind him.  
  
“You look sharp.  Off to your meeting?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said.  “I’ll also stop by the condo on Adams, make arrangements.  You’ll have to move in there for the duration, of course.”  
  
Alfred started.  “What?”  
  
Arthur sighed.  It would have been better to have discussed this when he wasn’t in a rush.  “You’ll have more space at your home for whatever equipment, and lots of tile and wood to roll around on.  There will be staff on hand.”  
  
“But I’m comfortable at your place,” Alfred said.  His frown was heartbreaking.  
  
“My place can’t handle it,” Arthur pointed out.  
  
“You’re kicking me out?”  
  
Arthur froze.  “Heavens, no!  Of course I’ll be there, too, to help take care of you.  In the evenings.  Someone has to work to pay for your medical care,” he joked, hoping to bring a return of Alfred’s smile.  
  
But Alfred didn’t smile.  It looked like he wilted.  “Oh.  Okay.  Sorry for the hassle.”  
  
_How could he think_ \--  Arthur bent over to look Alfred in the eyes, to rub his shoulders.  “It’s no hassle!  Dear man.  We didn’t have the chance to discuss it yesterday, and now I have the meeting.  I apologize!  But I can reschedule it again, if you want me to stay longer to talk.”  
  
Alfred’s small grin was reassuring.  “Oh, hell no.  Big-ass politicians wait for no one.  I don’t like it, but you’re right, of course.”  
  
“You’ll thank me when you have heaps of room to swing your bionic leg around,” Arthur said, relieved.  He kissed Alfred on the forehead in goodbye.  He looked forward to seeing the bandage removed, seeing how adorably wrecked his hair was.  Maybe it would grow back silver for real?  It would be a fine start to the rest of their lives.  
  
“Haha,” Alfred laughed.  “Maybe I can become a superhero?  Titanium Leg Man?”  
  
Arthur grabbed his keys, his phone.  His briefcase and files were at the office, waiting.  “Try to get some rest in between visitors.  See you later,” he said, and left.  
  
The meeting went tolerably well, if two hours longer than expected. After a short comment about how _important_ a U.S. Representative’s _time_ was – a comment Arthur ignored to glance through his papers – things proceeded with mutual professionalism among all involved.  Gregory decided to retain Arthur and his firm, and Arthur promised to get started as soon as possible.  
  
They were shaking hands all around when Monaca came running full-tilt to the conference room door.  “Mister Kirkland!  I need you to come right away.  It’s an emergency!”  
  
Arthur’s heart fully stopped at her words and the alarm showing plainly on her face.  Was Alfred dead?  
  
Behind him, Gregory and his people were joking, somewhat complimentarily, that an important attorney’s work was never done.  Arthur ran off with a hurried _thankyou-goodday_.  Throughout the office, people were standing at their desks, staring in shock.  Oh fuck, Alfred was dead.  Arthur would throw himself out his office window …  
  
Alfred was not, in fact, dead.  He was standing – sort of – in Arthur’s office, wearing the tee-shirt and sweats Arthur had brought for him to come home in.  On Monday. When he saw Arthur, he swayed and dropped his crutches, then fell onto the office sofa.  
  
“Hi!”  
  
Arthur was none too steady himself, even at the return of his pulse and breath.  He took a few trembling steps over to the couch and then fell to his knees beside it.  “What the bloody hell are you doing here!  Surely they haven’t released you--”  
  
“I escaped--”  
  
“Why would you do that?  You’ll give me a heart attack--”  
  
“You didn’t answer your phone--”  
  
“My meeting ran long!”   
  
“Oh.”  Alfred’s eyelids fluttered closed and for a moment they both stopped trying to talk over one another.  Then Arthur looked down.  Alfred’s leg…   
  
“You’re bleeding.  You’re bleeding to death on my couch.  Please don’t bleed to death,” he said in a shaky voice, shaking Alfred’s shoulders.  “Mon—Monaca – call an ambulance, right away…”  
  
“She already is.”  Bella had followed Arthur from the conference room and was standing in the doorway.  At Arthur’s anguished look, she sidled out.  
  
“I just – I had to talk to you,” Alfred said.  He opened his eyes.  His gaze was watery. “I was afraid you were over my shit.  I was afraid you were gonna leave me.”  
  
“Why would you ever think that?  I love you, you’re the most important thing to me—why won’t you believe me?”  Arthur resisted the urge to shake him further and hasten his demise.   
  
Alfred sniffled.  “I’m sorry, I just.  I’ve been trying to--  Just promise me, if you're thinking about leaving me or breaking up with me, tell me first and give me a chance to improve whatever it is you think I'm doing or give us a chance to work it out, that is if you think it's worth working out. Just give me notice, if you would, okay?”  
  
Tears were leaking from the corners of his eyes; he was heartrendingly pathetic.  Arthur’s own vision began to blur.  Was it the drugs or injury talking, there?  Likely both, on top of everything else: Arthur’s insecurities, and the talk they’d never had.  His Facts were all utter shite.  
  
“You … You …  What makes you think I’d ever leave you?  Is it because I didn’t want to get married?  Because we will fucking get married!”  
  
Alfred sniffle-laughed.  “Are you proposing, Arthur?”  
  
“I suppose I am,” Arthur laughed in return.  He was already on his knees, after all.  “You goddamned _moron!_ ”  
  
“How can I say no to that?”  Alfred beamed.  His despair dissipated in the space of a moment.  His grin gleamed and his eyes shone.  _Blue like Lake Michigan_ , Arthur had thought when they’d first met.  
  
“You won’t say no.”  
  
“I know.  Um.  I think I might be bleeding after all …I probably shouldn’t’ve come, should I?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Arthur told him.  But his heart soared.  He was going to be married.  To the biggest moron on Earth.  His life was going to be amazing.  And annoying, through joyful times and sickness.  And yet worth it in the end.  
  
***  
  
Arthur hated weddings.  Alfred swore he hated them, too, so when he was given leave by his doctor to go out and about, they procured a license and were wed by a civil servant.  
  
They kissed, they received their congratulations.  They celebrated quietly at home, home being Alfred’s spacious condo.  Arthur made dinner, and then they made love, very carefully, on the bed, with gentle hands and gasping mouths.  
  
Their legal agreement was blessedly short and to the point: don’t get divorced.  But if you do, status antenuptial. Arthur added a verbal coda that this was not an option for them.  Alfred hated divorces, so he agreed.  
  
They told everyone the next day.  Reactions ranged from shock to smug _I-knew-its_ to delighted complaints from their closest and dearest that they hadn’t been invited.  
  
Portia and Yong visited the day after, on Arthur’s second-and-a-half day of being an official husband.  The ladies of Chicagoland were surely weeping.  Not Portia; she looked fantastic.  Yong told them that Korean food agreed with her.  
  
She squealed over the preliminary decorating that Arthur had managed to accomplish.  Arthur beamed; the place really had become rather homey.  
  
“Speaking of food.  I’ve come to help you plan your party,” she said.  
  
“Party?”  Arthur looked at Alfred, who shrugged over his crutches.  
  
“Your mom made me promise to have one.”  
  
Arthur glared.  “You called my mother?”  
  
“Ahem.  She called _me_ ,” Alfred said, pulling his brand-new phone out of his pocket and waving it for emphasis.  
  
“Oh, fine,” Arthur groaned.  “But not a big one.”  
  
“We’ll have a cookout.  With burgers and beer,” Alfred said, always excited by the prospect of flame-broiling the flesh of dead animals.  
  
“Burgers and wine,” Portia said.  “In this building’s fantastic rooftop garden.”  
  
“Agreed,” Alfred said.  
  
Arthur stepped over to kiss Alfred’s cheek and ruffle his hair.  The scar from his stiches was still visible, but beginning to be hidden by new hair growth.  To Arthur’s secret disappointment, the fuzz was not coming in silver, but as golden as ever.  
  
“If I get a say?  Be sure to tell Bonnefoy that clothing is _not optional_.”  
  
“Agreed,” Alfred said again.  He ruffled Arthur’s hair in return.  His gaze showed an unholy glee as he beheld the tiny patches of white at Arthur’s temples; it seemed that staggering fright over Alfred’s accident had aged him prematurely.  He’d deliberated over coloring it.  
  
But since the thought of a distinguished, grey Arthur seemed to fill Alfred with fervid ecstasy, Arthur decided to let it go.  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I indulged myself by writing a sequel to my own fic, which I’d said I’d never do, yet here we are. I hope it was enjoyable and not boring. :) All comments, thoughts, critique, are loved.
> 
> "Getting Away With It" is by Electronic, and can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSfjtdnUsls


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